Blind They Die
by RazortoothNathen
Summary: Uchiha Sasuke knows his brother is wandering around Konoha, enjoying a life of respect and freedom, while the family he crippled slowly dies. Now Sasuke is finally a ninja and will not rest until his brother has paid for his betrayal. Even if said brother turns out to be his jounin-sensei.
1. Chapter 1

_AN:_ Hello, everybody. I've returned to after years of absence. I think my old account, Loudest_Voice, is still around somewhere, but I forgot my password long ago. This is a rewrite of an old fic of mine, _The Traitor and the Nine-Tails,_ which used to be moderately popular on this archive. My goal this year is to get something finished in this universe. Wish me luck.

 _Warnings:_ There's some M/M here. Not sure if you still warn for that on this archive, but if you do, here it is! However, this is not primarily a romance story. Also, how am I supposed to put scene breaks on this site nowadays?

Chapter One

His duty orders arrived a day after he saw his passing grade listed at the Academy's front noticeboard. _Report for Team Assignment on 6/1 at 700 hours, Academy Classroom 1._ Even less fanfare than getting the headband, which was probably for the best. People whispered last day of class. That little traitor, from _that_ clan, becoming a ninja. It made people nervous.

It made Sasuke nervous too, not that he would ever admit it. He tried very hard not to think of Itachi, but how could he not remember that at twelve, Itachi had been recruited for ANBU? Graduating at the top of his class barely ranked as an accomplishment.

Around him, his classmates chattered like hens that didn't know they were in line for slaughter, excepting clan brats maintaining an air of professionalism. Well . . . Yamanaka argued with that pink kunoichi with high scores on written tests, Nara seemed to be napping, and Hyuuga always faded to the background. A handful of minutes later, Sasuke himself had a dumb fight with that moron Uzumaki, who'd somehow weaseled a headband from Iruka-sensei.

Not much professionalism from anyone then. Sasuke could hardly take the high road when he worked himself into such a tizzy that he accidentally "kissed" that imbecile. The girls acted like they were in a soap opera over that, but Sasuke had little to report besides faint nausea that he knew Uzumaki had cheap miso ramen for breakfast.

Ending up in Uzumaki's team irked him, but traditions were traditions. No matter how dumb. Getting Haruno actually bothered him more since she was one of the annoying girls always harassing him (he would have picked Hyuuga, if only because she rarely talked to him . . . or even looked at him). None of it mattered. Only his jounin-sensei mattered, and then only if whoever they were took their teaching assignment seriously.

And didn't shun Sasuke for a traitor.

His head pounded as the jounin arrived for their teams. The new Ino-Shika-Chou team got the Hokage's son, as expected, and the rest got jounin that Sasuke couldn't recognize. Which didn't mean much, since Sasuke no longer had any connection reason to know who was who in Konoha's army. Then he was alone in the classroom, Haruno and Uzumaki grating at his nerves.

"Why isn't he _here_ yet?" whined Uzumaki, voice pitched to a note that made Sasuke's eardrums recoil.

"Maybe he's _busy,_ " said Sakura.

Sasuke grunted and laid his head on the table.

"Now you're bothering Sasuke!" screeched Sakura.

"Am I supposed to give a shit about that?"

"Shut up, _both_ of you!" said Sasuke.

Haruno made a sound fit for a wounded animal, but at least she retreated to a desk a few feet away from Sasuke. Of course, Uzumaki took that as a challenge and rushed closer, chanting some random challenges that Sasuke didn't bother registering. He couldn't afford to beat some sense into the idiot today, not when there was the slightest chance that he'd get a jounin-sensei with the mildest of intentions to train him.

Sasuke's short supply of patience was exhausted by the time the sun was halfway through the eastern sky, and there was still no sign of his jounin-sensei. Maybe it was all a hoax and the council was waiting outside, making bets about how long the Uchiha traitor would wait meekly for a jounin-sensei that would never come.

"That's _it,"_ yelled Naruto, rushing to the front of the classroom. "I'm gonna show this asshole."

"What are you _doing?"_ Sakura followed him, wringing her hands as Naruto grabbed the eraser and headed to the door. "You're gonna get us in trouble! Stop it, stop it; Sasuke _do_ something!"

Sasuke sighed. He wasn't going to make it.

At least Uzumaki calmed down after setting up his little trick, and settled at a front desk to giggle and fidget at odd intervals. Haruno glanced anxiously between him and the eraser, making Sasuke wonder why she didn't just disable the dumb trap if it worried her so much. Not that she should. Their jounin, if he bothered to show up, wouldn't fall for it anyway.

The door finally nudged open about an hour later. Sasuke couldn't keep himself from leaning forward, certain as he was that the trap wouldn't work. He heard Uzumaki and Haruno gasp loudly, then froze on his seat as the eraser missed a long braid by a breath.

"Damn it!" yelled Naruto. "He dodged."

"Juvenile."

His voice was the same. Sasuke's throat spasmed. He almost doubled over when those dark eyes passed over him briefly. No expression whatsoever. Maybe he didn't see Sasuke at all. Maybe it wasn't him.

"I'm _so_ sorry, sensei," Sakura breathed out, bowing almost to the floor. "Naruto's just deficient; he never knows any better."

"Like hell I don't," said Naruto. "Why are you so late?"

"For good reasons, rest assured," said Itachi.

Itachi. It was Itachi. Sasuke would recognize the bastard blind and deaf. And in hell.

"Follow me," said Itachi, without bothering to look up at Sasuke.

Somehow, Sasuke's joints hadn't locked in place. Proud that he didn't tremble, he got up and followed Haruno and Uzumaki. He even managed not look like was hurrying, though his teammates were tripping all over themselves.

"This isn't fair," said Naruto as they walked through the village, a few paces behind Itachi. "Shikamaru gets that badass with a beard and we get the girliest-looking fucker . . . besides Sasuke."

"He can _hear_ us," hissed Sakura, punching Naruto's shoulder and glancing back at Sasuke in obvious despair.

"I hope he can," huffed Naruto.

Sasuke focused on his heartbeat. No. He focused mostly on the fat braid between Itachi's shoulder blades, or on the ACE bandages wrapped around his calves, trying to judge if he was skinny or not. It was too hard to judge an enemy's weight when they wore the bulky standard uniform favored by Leaf jounin. Bile bubbled at the back of his throat. Itachi walked around as one of the most respected jounin in the village. Maybe he thought it was a fair reward for ripping through his family in a crippling wave of betrayal and murder.

Itachi paused on the trail leading to the Hokage monument, then gestured at a bench meant for sight-seeing. He leaned on a fence and scanned them, his expression placid. Sasuke couldn't restrain a reflex to curl his hands into fists when their eyes met, but Itachi didn't seem to recognize him.

Maybe it wasn't him. Sasuke hadn't seen him in five years, and it wasn't like Itachi had ever been particularly striking. Straight black hair and dark eyes, voice soft. There might be those birthmarks under his eyes, but they were only obvious up close. And the jounin was standing with his back to a wide tree trunk that shrouded him in a veil dim shadow. Maybe it wasn't him.

"My name's Itachi," he said.

Sasuke's throat clenched.

"That's nice," said Uzumaki. "Now what?"

"Naruto, don't be rude!" Haruno slapped his shoulder, then turned to Itachi and bowed to her waist. "He's uneducated, Itachi-sensei. I'm Haruno Sakura, and that's Uchiha Sasuke over there, and this idiot is Uzumaki Naruto."

"I know your names," said Itachi.

"So. What. Now?" repeated Uzumaki, perhaps angered at how Itachi's words made Sakura's shoulders slump.

"We get to know each other, I suppose," said Itachi. A gust of wind blasted through the tree, blowing some locks of hair in front of his eyes. He ignored them. "Hobbies, goals, and dislikes. That sort of thing."

"You tell us first," said Naruto. "Why are you a ninja?"

"Well," said Itachi, tilting his head at Naruto. "I was born here, a Hidden Village, and happened to have some talent."

 _Happened to have some talent._ Sasuke swallowed back vomit.

"I don't have much time for hobbies," continued Itachi, gazing at the sky with an absurdly wistful air. "I'm fond of candy . . . I think I would collect the wrappers if I was one for indulgences."

"That's the weirdest shit I've ever heard," said Uzumaki.

"Naruto." Sakura slapped his shoulder again, and then turned towards Itachi with a saccharine smile. "And what do you dislike, sensei?"

"Paperwork," said Itachi. "On a positive note, I'll have a lot to delegate now."

"So you're a desk jockey," said Uzumaki.

"Sometimes," said Itachi, "I'm very organized."

"That's not fair!" Naruto actually stomped his foot, making Sasuke consider the possibility that he was hallucinating. "I want a real jounin to be my teacher."

"There's a box at the main Mess Hall for suggestions and complaints," said Itachi.

Sasuke hated to admit that from almost anyone else in the world, he would have found that funny.

"Please just stop talking," Haruno pleaded with Uzumaki.

"That's alright; honesty is valuable among comrades," said Itachi.

"I became a ninja because there's a man I have to kill," said Sasuke before he even registered the fury Itachi's words triggered.

Itachi turned to him, tilted his head, and . . . smiled. His lips twitched.

"That's dumb," said Uzumaki, "especially for you. I became a ninja because I want to protect the village."

"You became a ninja because you want people to like you," said Sasuke.

"Fat chance. Everyone hates you."

"Not as much as they hate you and your traitor family, asshole."

"Naruto!" Sakura yelled at the same time that Sasuke prepared to rain down on Uzumaki like a beast on soldier pills.

"That's enough," said Itachi, voice devoid of levity for the first time.

Sasuke stopped in his tracks, gaze fixed on Uzumaki's frame, now in a defensive position. He glanced at Itachi, noting that he'd straightened up and shed all pretense of being relaxed. With great effort, Sasuke dropped his fighting stance. Attacking fellow shinobi outside of self-defense was grounds for dishonorable discharge. Technically. He would not make it so easy for Itachi.

"And you?" Itachi asked Haruno after the moment had passed, voice subtly light once more. Haruno blinked.

"Huh?"

"Why do you want to be a ninja?" repeated Itachi. Sasuke zoned out Haruno undoubtedly idiotic answer, determined not to lose his mind again. He needed to make it home, and then . . . one step at a time. For now, he just needed to get home.


	2. Chapter 2

_AN: I'm back. I'm quite into this story, so the updates will be pretty fast for a while._

Chapter Two

Itachi let them go early, but Sasuke couldn't make himself go home. He almost wished he'd accepted Sakura's stupid invitation for whatever it was she'd wanted to do if only because it would've given him something to do.

He had plenty to do, starting with figuring out what he'd tell his parents about his new jounin-sensei. Sasuke swallowed, momentarily nauseous, then set out for the main secret library. Even with a genin's pseudo-clearance, he should be able to access some files on Itachi. First and foremost, he needed something to say besides "Itachi looks healthy and happy".

His parents, Fugaku especially, would be crushed. They'd try to hide it, but Sasuke would be able to tell.

Getting into the secret library is so easy that Sasuke wonders if he couldn't have been sneaking in the entire time he was at the Academy. He notes the broad-shouldered ninja guarding the stair to the lower levels of the basement and assumes all classified information is much more heavily guarded, then turns to the shelves of scrolls, folders, and booklets that contain basic shinobi profiles. At some point in the week, some harried paperwork chuunin drone will slip a page with Sasuke's name into the row with all the U's.

He figured Itachi's was longer in that row, not after he personally decimated its numbers, and heads for "I", grateful that his parents didn't go for a common name like "Sasuke" for him.

Every time he explicitly considered his relationship to Itachi, he wanted to throw up. Wonderful.

Another punch to the gut came when he opened the bona fide textbook that passed for Itachi's profile book. Itachi, formerly of the Uchiha Clan. It was practically emblazoned in the heading, right beside a picture of Itachi that looked a few years old. Konoha was not the slightest bit ashamed of what they'd done to his family. They weren't even bothering to coat it in the usual veneer of propaganda.

Sasuke breathed, not loudly enough that it might attract any other ninja perusing the floor. He spared a second to be grateful for Konoha's decision to be cheap with the surrounding light bulbs since it probably made him a little harder to recognize, and forced himself to keep reading.

And hit another roadblock at Itachi's stat ranking. Thirty-five-point-five. That was insane. The Third didn't hit thirty-five, though Sasuke didn't remember the specific number. According to Iruka-sensei, few jounin ever hit the low thirties. And Itachi was _seventeen_.

Irrelevant. For the time being. Sasuke's eyes skimmed the missions listings, noted the insane number of S and A-rank missions Itachi had completed, and moved to the comment sections. Shinobi wrote anonymous reports about each other's performance out in the field, presumably to prepare for missions with unexpected teams and partners, but everyone knew the system was a village endorsed popularity contest and shit-talking mill. Even if Konoha hadn't fucked him over with Itachi as a jounin-sensei, Sasuke would've made his way to his profile booklet eventually.

And would have been equally gobsmacked by it. It seemed like all Konoha shinobi cared about was that Itachi was giving his ANBU boyfriend special treatment. Sasuke scanned the teeny handwriting people used to save space on the paper, growing more incredulous with every passing page.

 _It's just not fair_ , **random#7** commented. _Eiji's on ANBU payroll and completes like one mission a year just because he's blowing this asshole and the brass just looks the other way._

 _What, you think they're gonna start shit because the strongest ninja in the village has a pet medic?_ said **ANBUrankandfile**. _Be reasonable._

And so it went, until . . .

 _And it's more than one mission a year. Eiji's treated half of ANBU by now._

 _Hello, Eiji. Hopped off Itachi's dick for a change?_ asked **BlondShurik.**

 _Fuck you, you're the one who keeps bringing him up._

 _We are all Eiji in this booklet._ **Random#7** returned after a few days of silence. _Even you BlondShurik. Embrace it._

Did these people not realize what Itachi had done? Did they really care more about this Eiji? Speaking of . . .

 _Hello, motherfuckers. I'm here to gift you with my handwriting so your conspiracy theories can pick up some steam._

 _XOXO_ **Eiji** , _A. K. A._ **Wasp** , _A. K. A_ **the man your mom pictures when your dad fucks her**

If someone had told Sasuke he'd be reading about Itachi's boyfriend by noon when he woke up in the morning, he would've needed a moment to process the sentence before punching whoever said it in the face.

Eiji's interjection triggered a flurry of enraged, barely coherent comments that Sasuke mostly skimmed through, though he had to admit he was beginning to like **Random#7** , whoever they were.

 _I hope some enemy village steals this booklet at some point_ , they said, _because this stupid-ass conversation is humanizing us._

 _Isn't this shit supposed to be about how Itachi is on missions?_ interjected a seemingly new person. _If I want shit-talking about Eiji, I can always go to the hospital cafeteria._

Sasuke was about to give up when he finally ran into a useful comment buried all the way on page thirty of the stupid booklet.

 _I've actually been on missions with Itachi. No, I'm not Eiji. Here's the the gist of it for anyone who's here looking for information:_

 _Itachi is not a team player. He'll make a decision and expect you to follow it, though he at least lets you bitch about. I don't think anyone's ever fought him on a call because, honestly, would you?_

 _He doesn't share information. This is the fucking worst. From his POV, it makes sense since it is true they can't torture shit out of you that you don't know, but it's nerve wracking to actually be in his squads because shit could be hitting the fan at any moment and you wouldn't know it until you got shuriken flying up your ass._

 _None of that actually matters once you realize he turns most S-ranks into jokes. I've tracked six bingo-book missing-nin with this guy, and all six fights lasted less than a minute. Once he's got them under genjutsu, it's fucking done._

 _I was with him on a mission to bring down a Root asshole who hit like a fucking truck; think Might Guy but without the flamboyantness to make him less threatening, and the guy went down in an instant after Itachi joined the fight. Itachi looked freaking bored the entire time._

 _You all realize this kid has a flee-on-sight order in some regions of Lightning country, and you all got a bug up your ass because he gives his lay special treatment? Like most of you assholes wouldn't have a personal harem if you were half as strong as he is._

 _This is all about the mess with his clan, but no one has the balls to bring that up, even on paper._

 _In conclusion, consider yourself blessed if he asks for you on a mission. Itachi, if you're the type to read your own profile booklet and you recognize me, hit me up once you get sick of Eiji. As long as you don't like any weird shit in bed, I could use a string of S-ranks on my resume._

Sasuke put the booklet away after that, briefly considered searching for this "Eiji" before deciding that no one would care, except to wonder if Itachi had chosen a man because he cared in the slightest about giving away the Sharingan, or because he genuinely preferred men over women, then chose to head home. It was still early afternoon, but he had no excuses left to keep him from facing his parents.

The Uchiha compound was quiet, as it was most days since Itachi. It was how Sasuke thought of the incident that had rendered most of his family amputees, by his brother's name. No wonder seeing it grated his nerves like rust on a hinge.

He resisted an impulse to find some older aunts and uncles to see if they needed help with chores because they might ask him about his first day as a genin, and he didn't want to lie to them. His parents should be the firsts ones to learn of Konoha's latest insult.

The family cat, a sleek tabby they called Yori rubbed its spine along his calves as he took off his sandals. Normally, Sasuke would call out for Mikoto, but the word got stuck in his mouth. His eyes fell on the pristine house, at the sunlight that failed to lift the ever-present gloom from the neat furniture and wooden floors. A picture of their family as it used to be adorned the wall: his father confident and proud, his mother beautiful and serene, and Itachi. Young, thin, and expressionless. It'd been taken a month before it.

"You're back earlier than expected."

Sasuke had long since stopped jumping at the sound of his mother's voice, but his nerves were on edge. He could only meet her dark gaze for a moment before his eyes slid away, frowning at the empty space where her right arm should be. Itachi had sliced it off midway between her shoulder and elbow, and Mikoto never wore a prosthetic. They didn't make fake arms worth the trouble, she said.

"Sasuke."

"I'm fine," he said, but his voice broke around the second syllable.

"Let's go to the kitchen," said Mikoto. "I'll make some tea."

Sasuke followed her, forcing himself to hold back stupid, useless tears. Mikoto was still serene, and still beautiful, and he didn't want her seeing him sobbing like some kind of baby. She didn't deserve that.

"Your father retired early today," she said as she put a kettle on the stove.

No, he'd just taken too many painkillers again. Fugaku suffered from phantom limb pain, as did many of Sasuke's aunts and uncles, but he was the only one who anesthetized himself into a stupor on a regular basis. Not for the first time, Sasuke was guiltily grateful to get a break from his presence.

"So, what's wrong?" Mikoto said after setting a plate with the steaming kettle on the table.

"It's him," said Sasuke. "They made him my jounin-sensei."

"Has his name become difficult to pronounce?" asked Mikoto.

Sasuke looked up.

"Itachi. See?" She was expressionless as she sat beside him, wiping her hand with a kitchen towel.

"How did you know?"

"Who else would send you into such a state?" asked Mikoto.

"I'm sorry," said Sasuke.

Itachi had seen, of course he had, and Sasuke hadn't even thought of that.

"There's no need to be sorry," said Mikoto as she poured herself some tea. "How does he look?"

Sasuke shrugged. "He looked like himself, a little taller and with longer hair. I read his profile booklet."

He gave a short summary of the ridiculous fight scrawled on the thing, and Mikoto reacted as though he was recounting a vaguely interesting fiction novel. Sasuke didn't know what to make of it, so he forced himself to find the reaction calming. Nevertheless, he couldn't force out the flee-on-sight order, or the fact that Itachi already seemed to be the most powerful ninja in the village.

How was Sasuke supposed to measure up to _that?_

"And your other teammates?" asked Mikoto.

"Haruno and Uzumaki." He frowned, for once careless with his emotions. "They're useless."

"They didn't make Itachi your jounin-sensei," said Mikoto.

"Huh?"

Mikoto put her teacup down and looked down at Sasuke. "They made him Uzumaki Naruto's jounin-sensei."

"What?" Sasuke shook his head. Whatever Mikoto was getting at, he couldn't glean a wisp of it. Uzumaki was a nonentity, notable only for his extreme stupidity.

"Do you know what a _jinchūriki_ is?" asked Mikoto.

"Isn't that what the Fourth used to take down the Nine-Tails?"

"In a manner of speaking," said Mikoto. "The Fourth used Sealing Jutsu to bind the Kyūbi to a human—a jinchūriki. Uzumaki Naruto, to be more specific."

Sasuke's thoughts raced. That idiot? The Nine-Tails? How? Did he even know? And . . . "What does that have to do with Itachi?" He didn't think to be nauseous until after the name had burst out of him.

Mikoto smiled at him. "Sharingan can control the _bijū_ , or so they say."

". . . That's why they blamed us for the Nine-Tails' attack," said Sasuke. No one, in the village or in the Uchiha compound, had ever brought that up. Why not?

"They blamed us because it was convenient," said Mikoto.

Sasuke looked away, ashamed and unable to say why. No one had paused at the notion of him in the same team as Uzumaki. "I might never awaken Sharingan." He was pushing thirteen, already manipulated his chakra with ease, and had gone through his first puberty growth spurt. And still no sign of Sharingan in him.

"That's alright," said Mikoto. "There's more than one way to control someone."


	3. Chapter 3

_NA:_ _I forgot to thank my beta last two chapters, luvsanime02. So, retroactive thanks, and new thanks._

 _This chapter is supposed to have a scene break. Not sure how it will work out without it._

 _Also, thanks to people who reviewed and added to their alerts/favorites :)_

Chapter Three

"Well, this was embarrassing for all of you," said Itachi, the husk of the tree Sasuke had scorched framing him.

Sasuke had just gotten his breathing under control, but only time would vanish the sheen of sweat over his skin. His only consolation was that Uzumaki and Haruno looked much worse than him: Uzumaki stood soaking wet and Haruno looked a second away from bursting into tears. Though considering they were barely shinobi, Sasuke shouldn't take much pride in looking less foolish than they did.

"Come on, sensei!" whined Uzumaki. "Just give us another chance, and don't do that nasty genjutsu. It's not fair."

Itachi looked at him, sighed, and tucked a few locks of dark hair behind his ear. His gaze passed over Sasuke and Haruno, maintaining a long-suffering air to it. "You really should reconsider your career choices."

"What?" cried Uzumaki.

"Being a ninja is a difficult job," said Itachi. "For many, the benefits aren't worth it."

Sasuke could punch him. Barring people born into money, being a ninja was the best job in the village. Even those that weren't skilled enough to take a shot at more dangerous missions still got free treatment at the hospital and some travel flexibility, which allowed them to visit towns to look for odd jobs and potential clients for smuggled goods.

"I'm not reconsidering shit," said Uzumaki, crossing his arms. "You have any idea how hard I worked to get here? And how much I still got left to do?"

"The villagers won't accept you, much less respect you, if you become powerful enough," said Itachi. "There's no threshold of jutsu that will buy you their affection."

Uzumaki froze, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging slightly open, for once at a loss for words. Mikoto's warnings replayed in Sasuke's mind. _Itachi lies with the truth._ Perhaps, but Sasuke couldn't find the lie in that moment.

"The old-man Hokage . . ." started Uzumaki.

"Sarutobi Hiruzen is Hokage because he is respected," said Itachi. "He is not respected because he is Hokage."

As if Uzumaki would ever grasp the difference.

"Sakura." Itachi turned towards her while Uzumaki glared, trying to come up with a retort. She cringed at his attention, looking at his feet. "Shinobi work is painful, both physically and emotionally. Be really honest with yourself about how much you're willing to suffer for whatever glory you've imagined it is."

While Haruno hiccupped, Itachi flicked his gaze towards Sasuke.

"And you," he said, while Sasuke focused every fiber of his being on keeping his muscles lax and his breathing even, "you don't need power to defeat this man you hate so much. You need time. Ask your mother what I mean, if you have the guts."

Sasuke refused to rise to the bait. He would only be flattened and humiliated, as the stupid morning exercise to get those damned bells from Itachi had proved. He would keep his gaze locked on Itachi's dark gaze and make sure his face stayed frozen. Mikoto would probably want him to smile, but he had not reached that level of control.

"Come on, sensei," said Uzumaki. "If you just give us another chance . . ."

"Take today to think about what I've said." Itachi folded his hands at the small of his back. "If you're sure, report to the tower at seven-hundred hours tomorrow for our first mission. I won't think any less of you if you decide this isn't for you."

" _Seven-hundred—_ "

But Itachi flickered away before Uzumaki could even get the protest out. Sasuke let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.

"Damn it," muttered Uzumaki, before brightening up and smiling. "Well, at least he didn't demote us or whatever. You guys wanna grab some lunch?"

Sasuke growled before whirling around, too wound up to dignify the idiot with a response. He was halfway to the outskirts of the village, heading to a strip of forest that neighbored the Uchiha compound, before cooling down enough to _think._ Hadn't Mikoto instructed him, in no uncertain terms, to befriend Uzumaki Naruto, vessel for the fearsome Nine-Tailed Fox? Sasuke extended his neck, closing his eyes to ward them from the biting brightness of the midday sun, and sighed.

He had to go back to the village, to brave the bustling plaza a couple of blocks from the Tower, and sidle up to Uzumaki. Undoubtedly, the moron had gone straight to that stupid ramen stand. Villagers and shinobi alike flooded the plaza at lunch time, which would make it a joke for anyone interested in overhearing anything Sasuke might say.

Not an excuse. Sasuke allowed himself another suffering sigh before setting out for Ichiraku's.

-scene break-

He spotted Uzumaki waiting in line at Ichiraku's, trying to chat up some girl who looked everywhere but at him. For a moment, Sasuke berated himself for never noticing the oddness surrounding the villagers' contempt for his new teammate. Uzumaki was irritating, yes, but no more so than . . . say, Inuzuka, yet the villagers treated him as though he carried some sort of plague. The only person they might hate more was Sasuke himself.

Sasuke was tempted to take the busy crowd as an excuse to put off the unpleasantness of spending time with Uzumaki, but since there was no way to ever be around the idiot without arousing suspicion anyway, he braced himself and cut through the crowd. A few customers glared at him for cutting in line, but the combination of a headband and the Uchiha fan at the back of his navy shirt was enough to keep them at bay.

"Hey," he started, once he was by Uzumaki's side.

"What the fuck!" Assuming that Uzumaki's surprise was exaggerated for effect was probably giving him too much credit. "Bastard?"

"Uh . . ."

"You know there's a line, asshole?"

Sasuke glanced at the complainer—a paunchy old man with a bald spot and a beer belly—then shifted his attention back to Uzumaki. "We need to talk?"

"Do we?"

"I mean, I want to talk," amended Sasuke.

Uzumaki stared at him as though he'd sprouted a second head, and walked forward with the line. "Seriously, what the fuck?"

At a loss for what else to do, Sasuke slid behind him. "Come on, it's important."

"Whatever, douche. I'm hungry."

A few customers grumbled, but no one dared to say much. Sasuke admitted, though only to himself, that Uzumaki's refusal to acknowledge his presence was impressive. Sort of. He'd always thought of the moron as incapable of anything as subtle as passive-aggressiveness. When Uzumaki still didn't acknowledge him even after they picked up their orders of miso ramen and Sasuke followed him to a somewhat secluded spot behind a depilated flower stand a block away from Ichiraku's, Sasuke started to reevaluate a few of his assumptions.

Much to his annoyance, the ramen itself proved to be excellent. The salt did not overpower the collection of spices dissolved in the broth, which was more than could be said for anything prepared in what amounted to a little shack.

"Alright, asshole," Uzumaki said finally, "what do you want?"

"I was thinking that since we're teammates now, we should make amends," said Sasuke.

Uzumaki fixed narrowed blues eyes on him.

"And," continued Sasuke, refusing to let the idiot unsettle him, "maybe train together."

". . . Yeah, right," said Uzumaki. "Get out of my face."

Well, what was Sasuke supposed to do next? Beg? "Is it really so hard to believe that I'd want to be on good terms with you?"

"'Dead last, you make me want to puke'," Uzumaki spoke in a sing-song voice that sounded nothing like Sasuke. "'Your mother must have smoked, drank, and dropped you on your head before the war', 'I'd rather choke on my own kunai than practice with _you,_ dead last', 'you're so stupid I'd forget the jutsu if I tried to train with you'."

"You can't imitate a voice for shit," said Sasuke. Not the most diplomatic of responses, but Uzumaki would wall off even more if Sasuke laid on the sweetness too thickly.

"That's all from last week," said Uzumaki. "And now you expect me to believe you wanna be BFFs?"

"Last week I wasn't _stuck_ with you," said Sasuke. "Dead fucking last," he added for good measure.

"Tough shit," said Uzumaki, smirking so hard his face muscles probably strained. "Now _I'm_ the one who doesn't want to train with _you."_

Sasuke sucked in an angry breath, then paused. What would Mikoto do? Find a way to make Uzumaki believe he'd changed his mind on his own.

"Fine then," said Sasuke, gleeful that he didn't need to hide an iota of his disgust. "I'd be scared to spar with me if I was you too."

"Fucking excuse me?"

"It'd be what? The millionth time I wipe the floor with you?"

"You know what," said Uzumaki. "It's on . . . after I finish my ramen though."

Sasuke looked down to hide his satisfied smile. "It is pretty good ramen."

"And after it goes down 'cause this is too good to throw—hey, what about Sakura?"

"What?" It took Sasuke a moment to remember Haruno's first name. "Oh, right."

"She's part of the team too," said Naruto, beaming. "We should tell her to train with us."

". . . Right," said Sasuke, wishing desperately for an excuse to stay away from her that wouldn't make Uzumaki suspicious of his intentions. There just wasn't one.

"She'd never listen to me," said Uzumaki, "but if _you_ say we should train together . . . for some reason she can't see what a dick you are. We should spar tomorrow and find her after lunch."

"Right."

Sasuke decided to call the conversation a success. Considering how annoying Uzumaki could be, Haruno would refuse to be around them in a few days at the most. Sasuke hoped, anyway. Haruno was pretty annoying herself.

-scene break-

"Sakura would be with Ino around this time," said Uzumaki, about half an hour after they'd finished their ramen. "Except Ino's probably with her team so I'm not sure where she'd go . . ."

Sasuke didn't have the first idea, not that he wanted to find her anyway, so he was content to let Uzumaki speculate.

"She wouldn't have gone home because then she'd have to tell her parents what an asshole Itachi is," continued Uzumaki.

Sasuke couldn't suppress a frown at the sound of Itachi's name. He'd have to work on that.

"I bet she went to that little park near her house," said Uzumaki. "She goes there when she feels bad."

If it was Sasuke and he was trying to keep anything from his parents, then he wouldn't go to brood anywhere near their home while he was supposed to be doing something else. Someone might see him. Though he wouldn't be surprised if Haruno hadn't worked out that much.

"Alright, let's go," said Uzumaki.

As it turned out, Haruno had enough sense not to retreat to a little playground within walking distance of the house she shared with her civilian parents. Uzumaki frowned at the pre-schoolers running around a swing set, their mothers chasing around them with happy laughter, and plopped down on the tree branch he was sharing with Sasuke.

"I don't think she'd go to the library now," he said. "She doesn't go there when she's upset."

"How do you know so much about her?" asked Sasuke. The only reason he'd found Uzumaki at the ramen stand was that the moron ranted praises to the place nonstop to anyone who'd listen. And anyone who wouldn't listen too.

"She's gonna be my wife so I have to know what she's up to," said Uzumaki.

"In other words, you're stalking her."

"No, I'm practicing stealth," said Uzumaki, crossing his arms over his chest.

Sasuke shot him an unimpressed look. He was vaguely offended on Haruno's behalf, at least until he remembered that if she couldn't detect _Uzumaki_ tailing her, then she probably deserved to be stalked.

"I know!" said Uzumaki. "A couple of weeks back she had this big fight with Ino and . . . come on." He grabbed Sasuke's arm and gestured deeper into the forest.

Haruno had retreated to a semi-secluded grove less than a kilometer south of the playground. It was well within village borders, but away enough that most would avoid it without a thought, including shinobi trying for some privacy. As far as hiding spots went, it'd do for a civilian. Haruno sat against a tree trunk, legs drawn to her chest and face buried between her knees. She didn't notice him and Uzumaki approaching her, and also did nothing to muffle the hiccups and sniffles escaping her.

"Sakura," started Uzumaki as he walked towards her.

She startled and raised her head, then glowered when her red-rimmed eyes fell on Uzumaki. A scrape on the lateral side of her left knee glowed an angry red, a souvenir from whatever skirmish she'd had with Itachi.

"That's looking pretty nasty," said Uzumaki, gesturing at the bruise. "You wanna go to the clinic?"

"No, it's nothing," said Haruno.

Sasuke agreed. It looked worse than it was, and probably stung like hell, but it wasn't worth bugging the medics about.

"Ugh, that bastard!" said Uzumaki. "He shouldn't have hit you that hard."

"He didn't," said Sasuke.

Haruno looked at him, as though she hadn't noticed him until that moment, and shrunk in on herself.

"Then who, dumbass?" asked Uzumaki.

Sasuke shrugged. Itachi hadn't hit either him or Uzumaki, and there wasn't a single reason he'd be tougher on Haruno, so . . .

"I t-tripped," admitted Haruno.

 _Itachi is neither violent nor cruel,_ Mikoto had warned Sasuke, _but he is careless, and a terrible of judge of others' limits._

"Uh, it happens to the best of us?" tried Uzumaki.

No, barring drugs or injuries, good ninja didn't _trip,_ but it wasn't in Sasuke's best interest to alienate Haruno. Not yet.

"Give me a break," said Haruno. "Itachi-sensei's right and I'm not cut out for this."

"That's not true; you have the best grades," said Uzumaki, then gestured at Sasuke. "And the Bastard here said we should train together, so I bet you'll fight much better in no time now."

"I don't know," said Haruno, glancing at Sasuke. "Maybe it'd be better for you guys if I quit and a better fighter takes my place."

"No way," said Uzumaki. "If you quit, I'm quitting too. We're a team."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. So much for that determination to be Hokage.

"This is exactly what I-itachi wants," he said, despising himself for having so much trouble with the bastard's mere _name._ How did he expect to ever beat the fucker in a fight, much less kill him?

"Yeah, totally," said Uzumaki. "It's more of his mind games."

"You really think so?" Haruno sniffed and rubbed her nose.

"He knew we had absolutely no chance to get those bells from him," said Sasuke. "Maybe this is the real test. Which of us has the psychological fortitude to report for duty after being humiliated?"

Haruno didn't look more confident, but she nodded, and Sasuke knew he'd won the first round. Team Seven would not dissolve so easily despite Itachi's best efforts.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Itachi didn't seem surprised when all three of them showed up at the Tower the next day. That was fine. Sasuke hadn't expected a reaction. He eyed the scroll Itachi had slipped under his belt, unable to suppress a flash of curiosity even though he knew it would be a dumb chore/pseudo-mission. Had Itachi ever done D-ranks? He'd been part of a genin squad once. Sasuke ought to look for those records next.

"We're here!" declared Naruto, loud enough that a few of the chuunin around glared his way. "We passed your little psych test."

Sasuke thought that Itachi's eyes slid over to him, but . . . he probably just imagined it.

"Less paperwork for me, I suppose," said Itachi. "Meet me at TG-7 in an hour. I have a meeting."

"That's not an excuse," said Uzumaki.

Naruto. Sasuke had to start thinking of his teammates in more familiar terms. Mikoto always said that the best lies had a grain of truth to them.

"I don't owe you excuses," said Itachi, a second before he vanished.

"Damn him!" Naruto raised his fist to the air like they were all in a badly acted play. "I wanna learn to disappear like that."

"Let's just get to the training grounds," said Sakura, sighing.

Sasuke tried and failed not to obsess over Itachi's meeting while Naruto annoyed Sakura with some invitations to lunch, dinner, the next festival Konoha had in the works, and the end of times, probably. Whatever. The morning sun burned his forehead, or maybe it was just his thoughts trying to burst out of him. The jinchuuriki, Naruto, the Sharingan, and Itachi.

Itachi from before, the absent hole of the last five years, and whatever he'd turned into.

"The good news is that becoming a chuunin is easier than most imagine."

Sasuke's breath caught.

"Oh, come _on!_ " yelled Naruto, hopefully masking Sasuke's reaction. "That's just rude."

"Stop it," said Sakura, slapping Naruto's shoulder.

Itachi sat in front of the burned tree trunk, unconcerned with Naruto and Sakura's bickering. If he noticed Sasuke staring at him, nose itching in sympathy as the wind blew Itachi's bangs into his face, he didn't care.

"The next chuunin exams are in nine months," said Itachi. "That should be more than enough time for you to learn basic reconnaissance and foraging, then we can all go on with our lives."

Liar. Liar. Itachi wouldn't be allowed to stray too far from Naruto. He wanted to get rid of Sasuke. And Haruno.

"Good going on letting us know you wanna get rid of us as soon as possible," said Naruto. "What special jutsu do you know?"

"I'm good at genjutsu," said Itachi, which was so criminal an understatement it might as well be a lie. "Most chuunin know only the bare minimum."

"Iruka-sensei said I have potential with genjutsu," said Sakura, gaze fixed on the grass.

"But you fell for my illusions just as badly as these other two," said Itachi.

Sakura shrank. Naruto came to her defense in a flurry of indignation that Sasuke didn't care to pay attention to. He remembered, despite his best efforts, Itachi floating away from him whenever he asked to train. There had been half-smiles then. He was grateful that Itachi wasn't bothering with the mask this time; then he hated himself for being grateful.

"We'll do missions in the morning, and spar in the afternoon," said Itachi.

The missions were as stupid as Sasuke had expected: hunt down lost cats, take cows grazing, chase away ducks, clean the grimy hotel near the busiest village gates (Naruto's clones were indispensable for once), transport sugar sacks from a warehouse to several markets in the village, etc., etc. Considering the pittance charged for a standard D-rank, Sasuke couldn't even think of it as grunt work.

"It's the businesses you're helping," Mikoto told him one afternoon when he couldn't stifle his complaints. "Some of them."

The sparring . . . well, it was more of an exercise in humiliation.

He didn't bother to spar with them personally after the first disastrous day of training. Sasuke hadn't been able to touch him, hadn't been able to see him at some points. He knew that sparring sessions where one partner could do little beyond throw katas at the other were boring, but what else could he do? Itachi didn't react to him; he just dodged with a blank look on his face.

So he made a dull Shadow Clone from then on, one that danced away from them without speaking. It was like fighting an infernal doll.

"I don't know how he expects us to learn from that thing," complained Sakura about two weeks into their training.

Left to his own devices, Naruto would eat at Ichiraku's every day, three times a day, but the summer intensified each passing week, making hot ramen a special kind of torture. Most ninja preferred assorted salads with extra meat, noodles, and potatoes during the hotter months. And shaved ice with sugar and food coloring that probably eroded the stomach lining in high concentrations, but Sasuke didn't care. He had too few relaxing things left in life.

"I think I'm getting stronger," said Naruto, ever the optimist. "The clone was a little slower today."

Sasuke attributed that to Itachi being distracted by an official looking scroll that he hadn't managed to examine, but Naruto was getting stronger. Because Sasuke was training with him daily. Sakura too, but she didn't seem able to keep up with them. He didn't push because Naruto was happy enough as long as she was around, even if the two of them were the only ones doing anything. As long as Naruto was content, he didn't need to waste too much time on her.

All in all, being paired with Sasuke was the best thing that had ever happened to Naruto. It turned out that the idiot could be taught as long as the lesson was framed as some kind of competition.

"Tell you what, moron," said Sasuke. "If you can climb this waterfall faster than me, I'll give you one of my mother's shuriken."

"Really?" Naruto said, blue eyes wide.

He always looked like Sasuke was bringing down the sun and the stars for him with every hint of acknowledgement, and it made Sasuke feel a strange mix of happiness and anxiety that at least one aspect of his mission was so easy. He bet that Naruto already loved him, though he probably wouldn't admit it if asked.

"Yeah, really," said Sasuke. It'd be weeks and weeks, maybe months, before Naruto would be close to beating him at speed.

"What about Sakura?" asked Naruto.

Sakura was taking yet another break, nursing a cramped muscle after a mere thirty minutes of climbing up the waterfall. She had better control than either of them, but less motivation than a pampered noble.

"Sure, she can try to beat me too," said Sasuke.

"Alright, I'm gonna go tell her!"

Sasuke sighed and rubbed his face. It was going well, he told himself at least ten times daily, but strength seemed to desert him at random times anyway. Either he gritted his teeth while Itachi ignored them during missions, or when Sakura worked up the courage to invite him on some stupid date, or when Fugaku asked about Itachi during dinner. Most nights, Sasuke woke in the grips of palpitations, and he was freaking twelve-years-old.

As the sun started setting, Sakura approached him, hands crossed at the small of her back and eyes locked anywhere but on his. "Sasuke—"

"—no, I don't want to go anywhere with you," snapped Sasuke. "How many times do I have to say it, for fuck's sake?"

Sakura dipped her head and sniffed. "S-sorry, I didn't mean . . ." She whirled around and ran off.

A loud breath wheezed past Sasuke lips. He hadn't even realized he'd stopped breathing. That was definitely an overreaction, but at least Naruto had gone off to piss in the forest, so he hadn't witnessed it. Sasuke wouldn't have to suffer through a half-hearted apology. He ignored a voice in the back of his head suggesting that, maybe, he owed Sakura one regardless. It was not his fault that she couldn't get it through her thick skull that every time she made advances, she disrespected his entire family.

Or maybe she did, and she just didn't care. Sasuke got up for a walk, ignoring the thought that he should wait around to say goodbye to Naruto.

"Hey!" called Naruto later. The moon peeked through the hazy orange sky of sunset, and Sasuke had only the vaguest idea of which part of the village he'd wandered to. "What're you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?" asked Sasuke, looking around. A garish neon sign advertised custom cocktails from a feminine silhouette with curves too steep to be anatomically possible. Men scurried around, hands in their pockets and eyes fixed on the ground.

Somehow, Sasuke had stumbled into the Red Lights District. He considered picking some pockets just to make the trip less pointless. Genin made shit money anyway.

"I'm taking a shortcut to Ichiraku's," said Naruto. "You wanna come with?"

Considering Ichiraku's was practically at the other end of the village, that made no sense, but Sasuke was in no mood to argue.

"Sure," he said. Thinking about food made him realize he was hungry.

Sasuke had a feeling that Naruto used to pester the old man who owned Ichiraku's for conversation, but was more than content to indulge Sasuke's introverted nature. They picked up their ramen and retreated to a rooftop near a streetlight, Naruto babbling about some idiotic novel he was reading.

"Like, I'm sorry, but this main girl is just being dumb now," rambled Naruto. "She's trying to turn herself into this creepy old man even though her ninja is as strong as the Fourth."

"Aren't they all," said Sasuke, chewing one of the sundried cherry tomatoes scattered in his ramen.

Dimly, he thought of Namikaze Minato, a man that Konoha pretended to worship while treating his son like shit. He should just tell Naruto the truth and spare himself the tedium of a fake friendship. Naruto would probably decide the damned village wasn't worth it all by himself.

"Sakura was crying, y'know?" Naruto slurped on his noodles, and Sasuke couldn't tell if it was a clumsy tactic to avoid having to look up.

"She cries a lot." Not exactly a show of remorse, but he sensed Naruto didn't need him to go that far anymore.

"She wasn't even gonna ask you out," said Naruto. "She was just gonna ask about chakra."

"Bullshit. She knows more about chakra theory than me."

"No, I'm serious," insisted Naruto. "None of that 'theory' is helping her in practice and it looked like you got the stick outta your ass a little . . ."

Sasuke could concede that maybe he'd overreacted at Sakura, but since she'd been bugging him with the rest of the girls in their year since forever, he wasn't about to self-flagellate about it. "She should just ask I—" Despite it all, the name still got tangled in his tongue.

"Why do you hate him so much?" asked Naruto.

For the first few days, Sasuke had waited for Naruto to bring up Itachi's background because he wasn't the type to tiptoe around anything. Sakura had obviously sorted out who Itachi was, or rather, who he used to be. But by the third day or so, Sasuke had realized that Naruto just wouldn't think to do even the most cursory research on his jounin-sensei, and a part of Sasuke he hadn't even known existed relaxed.

"It's like you're gonna throw up if you look at him too long," said Naruto.

"What, like you don't?" He wasn't as dumb as Sasuke would like sometimes.

"I think he's a dick," said Naruto.

Sasuke bit his lip to hide a stupid smile.

"He's lazy as hell and he's trampling all over Sakura's confidence." Naruto shrugged. "But I don't hate him."

Sasuke stared at his ramen cup, gripping his chopsticks so tight he had to force his hand to relax or risk fracturing them.

"I don't think he's rude on purpose," continued Naruto. "Trust me, I would know. He annoys the hell outta me, but shit . . . Sasuke, I can get his name out without looking like it's choking me."

Sasuke's cup of ramen hit the sidewalk. He stared down at the white carton, wondering how it got down there, and forced himself to take a steadying breath. If even Naruto could see how messed up he was, then . . .

"I'm late," he said.

"Sasuke—"

"—I'm _late,_ " he repeated.

Mercifully, Naruto didn't try to follow him.

Next morning, the sun seemed as angry as Sasuke. Sweat poured down his temples as he chased after Itachi's infuriating clone all over Training Ground Seven. A couple of times, he couldn't help but look towards Naruto. The idiot always complained about the dullness of chakra manipulation exercises, but at least he got to stand below a cascading waterfall during the hottest days of summer. Sakura wasn't far off from the edge of the pond trying to move around a boulder bigger than her. A boring exercise, but one that should help her with her reserves, assuming that she was doing it right.

Sasuke sighed, then looked back at the clone. The thing stared at him with dark eyes, unconcerned with the wind blowing its hair into its face, or with the heat, or with anything. The real Itachi had disappeared into a tree at some point and was currently doing fuck knew what.

"This is so stupid," said Sasuke, wiping sweat from his brow. The clone was beyond him. Itachi had to know that.

He sat right on the ground, taking advantage of the shade offered by the sycamore tree over them. Mikoto's words rang in his ear; Itachi's clones were harmless unless provoked. Most of the time.

Less than a minute later, the real Itachi stood in front of him. "What are you doing?"

"What do you care?"

It'd been weeks and Itachi had done nothing. Sasuke bet he would continue to do nothing. He would've realized it sooner if not for the simmering rage that overboiled whenever he thought about Itachi too explicitly.

"You have to train," said Itachi.

"No, I don't," said Sasuke.

That was bullshit, but if Itachi disagreed, he'd actually have to do his job. Or hurt, maybe even kill Sasuke. Anything but the nothing he was doing.

The confrontation, if it could be called that, died when an anonymous ninja Sasuke couldn't detect flickered behind Itachi.

"Ibiki wants you," said the bulky ninja in a gruff voice. Jounin, Sasuke assumed.

"Tell him I'm busy," said Itachi.

"Don't be a dick," said the ninja. "It's not like Ibiki ever asks for you unless it's an emergency. Dismiss the brats early."

Naruto and Sakura had noticed the newcomer. They approached quickly, perhaps expecting more excitement than was warranted.

"Itachi," said the ninja.

"Take the day off," said Itachi.

They were gone before Naruto and Sakura reached the sycamore.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Sasuke had a new baby cousin, but her eyes were pale green. Fugaku was less than pleased, and he was awake enough when her parents brought her to meet their Head Family to say as much. Thank the spirits that no one took the ramblings of an addict seriously. Sasuke's chest ached every time he thought of his father in such uncharitable terms, but the ache grew fainter every day. If Fugaku couldn't see that there was more to being an Uchiha than the Sharingan . . . well, then Itachi remained a better Uchiha than all of them.

He headed to the Tower determined not to think about the spat he'd almost had with Itachi the previous afternoon. He hadn't spoken to Mikoto about it, but he bet she would have told him to stay calm. And to control his temper better next time. He couldn't afford to go around making principled stands when the village would seize the flimsiest opportunity to prune him from the ninja ranks. If Itachi wanted him to waste morning after morning chasing after a Shadow Clone, then Sasuke would waste his mornings chasing around after a Shadow Clone.

At the Tower, the chuunin manning the cubicle that handed out D-ranks took one look at him and said that Itachi had decided to take a mission from the fourth floor that morning.

"What?" said Sasuke.

"Am I fucking stuttering?" said the chuunin, without looking up from a manga volume. "Stupid genin."

Sasuke rushed towards the stairs, then forced himself to walk with some damned dignity. The fourth floor was the Mission Hall, where _real_ ninja missions were divvied out.

Had Itachi gotten tired of sitting around while he, Naruto, and Sakura milked cows and cleaned roofs? Or maybe it had to do with that messenger who'd summoned Itachi to Ibiki, who Mikoto had identified as an Intelligence specialist? Or he wanted to avoid further confrontation with Sasuke? He couldn't suppress a short, strangled laugh at that last thought, earning himself a funny look from a pair of chuunin passing him at the stairs.

The Mission Hall looked like any random office might, except the secretaries were chuunin sporting any assortment of scars and injuries. A stout woman limped to the window and slid it open as she fanned herself with a bunch of papers. Sasuke had never seen disabled ninja still working, and it surprised him so much that for a moment he missed Naruto shambling towards him like a drunken tiger.

"We're going on a _real mission!_ " he yelled, throwing his arms around Sasuke.

"Naruto, stop being so embarrassing," said Sakura.

Sasuke pushed Naruto off, glad that no one seemed to be paying them the slightest attention.

"We're escorting an _artist,"_ Naruto told him, gesturing at a short woman with hair dyed flame-red. "This is Miss Eiko."

The word for her was voluptuous, and judging by the way she dressed in a kimono that was a hint too short and a touch too low-cut, she knew it. If she was a kunoichi, she'd be the perfect type for seduction missions.

"Isn't this one adorable," she said, reaching for Sasuke's chin.

Sasuke just stood there, annoyed by Sakura's snitty little 'hmph', waiting for the moment to pass. This woman was obviously too old to genuinely consider him attractive, so she'd lose interest in teasing him much faster if he just ignored her.

"Where is this jounin of yours?" Eiko asked, moving away from Sasuke, fake interest evaporated.

"He comes and goes whenever he likes," shrugged Naruto. "What kind of things are you an artist about?"

"I draw, mostly," she said, smiling at Naruto's odd way to phrase the question.

"The mission debrief said she wants to draw some sketches for naturalists," said Sakura.

"I haven't read it yet," said Naruto.

"Where _is_ the jounin?" repeated the client.

"I _told_ you, he—"

"—I'm here."

Itachi's voice hit Sasuke's ears before he felt the bastard's presence on his left. Sasuke forced himself not to whirl towards him, to look his way as though he'd known the fucker was there the whole time. Itachi wouldn't fall for it, but maybe some of the people bustling around Mission Hall would.

"You didn't surprise me this time," said Naruto. "Hah!"

"Yes, I did," said Itachi. "You're just not surprised I surprised you, for once."

"Is that really important right now?" asked Sakura.

"Wait, where's the jounin?" asked Miss Eiko, looking Itachi up and down.

Itachi hadn't bothered to put on the full jounin uniform, settling for the slacks and a black wife beater that did little to hide that he was slim, if well-muscled. His headband was wrapped around his belt instead of around his head, and his hair was done up in a fish-tail braid that must have taken some time to do. He hardly looked like what most civilians imagined when they pictured a jounin.

"That's pretty much him," said Naruto, as if he remained as unimpressed as Eiko.

Sasuke bit back a smile at his tone.

"Alright, there's been some kind of mistake," said Eiko. "I was told I'd get a real ninja, preferably one taller than me."

"I'm not fake," said Itachi.

"He doesn't look like much, but he's actually pretty badass," said Naruto.

Sasuke hated himself for being annoyed at that. It was the truth.

"I've been a ninja more than half my life, Miss Eiko," started Itachi.

"Which would be impressive if you were an adult," interrupted Miss Eiko. "I need to speak to your manager."

"Lady, this isn't a restaurant," said Sakura.

"Yeah, don't insult him like that," said Naruto. "He's gonna give you nightmares."

Well, the client probably wouldn't have gotten what "genjutsu" is.

"Miss Eiko, you paid a fraction of what someone of my rank costs in exchange for letting your trip become a training mission," said Itachi. "If you want a different jounin, then post another request, multiply whatever you paid by about five, and wait for a jounin to become available. We don't exactly grow on trees."

Miss Eiko glared, but she couldn't tolerate the increased cost or the wait, or both, and agreed to be off with them by mid-afternoon. She kissed Itachi's cheek, a move he tolerated as blankly as Sasuke had tolerated her chin grabbing. Then she left, saying something about friends and goodbyes, and Itachi looked at them and gestured to follow him. Moments later they were using one of the tiny conference rooms beyond the main hall where the missions were assigned.

"Here's the deal," he told them without preamble, "she's hiding something. We're to find out what it is before we reach Hagi."

"Why not just torture her?" said Sasuke.

"Wow, that's a little extreme," said Sakura.

"It's not your place to ask questions, genin," said Itachi. "Just listen, and do what you're told."

"I guess you always did." Sasuke was proud he sounded so casual, though every part of him was screaming to shut up and keep his head down.

"No," said Itachi, looking straight at him. "Not always."

"Uh . . ." Naruto leaned closer and started mock-whispering to Sasuke. "Did I miss something? You guys fighting?"

Sakura mumbled Naruto's name and dragged him away from Sasuke, but the interruption was enough to reel Sasuke back in. He forced himself to look away from Itachi's eyes, hating the surge of relief that followed, and glared at the beige wall while Itachi went on with his mission briefing.

"Chances are she'll target one of you when she tries to escape," said Itachi, "and that's when I'll intervene. In the meantime, she must go on believing that I suspect nothing. Keep watch, and report to me if she does or says anything strange."

"She hit on Sasuke," said Naruto. "That was pretty weird since she's a grown up and all."

Itachi stared at him. "This is going to be a long trip."

"Not that kind of weird, then?" Naruto shrugged. "My bad."

"You have four hours to get your affairs in order," said Itachi. "Don't brag about details of your first mission to anyone, and meet me at the northern exit."

Sasuke stood up at once, eager to put as much distance between himself and Itachi as possible, but Naruto wasn't done.

"Can I bring a book?"

"Naruto!" said Sakura.

"He said it was gonna be a long trip," protested Naruto. "So, can I?"

"If you can hide the book from me, sure," said Itachi.

Naruto was still rambling about accepting challenges when Sasuke escaped the room. Four hours was plenty of time, technically, but he . . . he fled via a window, and it was a good five minutes before he realized he'd gone into the forest with no particular direction in mind. What a disaster. Itachi hadn't even done anything yet, and Sasuke could barely stand to be in the same room with him. How would he handle days and days with the bastard away from Konoha, with no escape available? Could he force himself to care enough about the mission to put Itachi out of his mind?

One way or another, he would have to.

He made it home in record time, certain that Fugaku would be deep into his second dose of morphine milk for the day. In his mood, even speaking to Mikoto made him grind his teeth, but he had to tell someone he would be leaving the village.

"It'll be your first time away from home," Mikoto said, rubbing her arm just above the stump.

Sasuke had been so preoccupied with not screaming obscenities at Itachi that he'd forgotten all about that. "Yeah, I guess."

"It's a big world out there," said Mikoto. "Few places, if any, can boast Konoha's comforts."

Sasuke rubbed his wrist. He wouldn't call any part of Konoha comfortable.

"How's your training going?"

"It isn't," said Sasuke. "Itachi's refusing to teach."

"He's not refusing." Mikoto didn't quite smirk, but her smile looked sour. "He just doesn't know how to teach. How could he, when he's never struggled to learn anything in his life?"

"You're not the one spending every day with him," said Sasuke, disregarding how disrespectful he might sound. Technically, he was an adult now. "He's not even trying."

"Sasuke."

Feeling small, Sasuke looked up at her.

"How is your relationship with Naruto?"

"He likes me," said Sasuke, shrugging. "It was easy. He's lonely."

"He's not the only one." Mikoto reached for his chin, a mirror of the client's gesture earlier, which did little to make Sasuke confident of his adulthood. "Itachi won't do anything to you. Ignoring him should not be so insurmountable a challenge. So forget him for now, and focus on Naruto."

"How do you know he's not going to do anything?"

Mikoto let go of his chin, and shrugged. "He hasn't so far, has he?"

Maybe not physically, but Sasuke hadn't gone a day without nausea or tension headaches in five years, all thanks to what Itachi had done.

"If you must," said Mikoto, "tell yourself you're grateful he didn't murder us all."

Sasuke snorted. Thankfully, Mikoto took it in stride and chuckled along. Talk about damning with faint praise.


	6. Interlude One: Mikoto

_AN:_ Back after a long while. Thanks again to luvsanime02 for beta-reading.

Interlude One: Mikoto

It'd been a long time since Mikoto experienced pain besides the flashes of phantom agony from her missing limb. The throbbing from the rusty nail she'd driven through the bones of her right foot was both more intense and duller, as though her brain knew that it would soon be resolved.

Well, perhaps not _soon._

Konoha's emergency room was crowded with sniffling children, adults with hacking coughs, bored shinobi waiting for routine physicals, and elderly people complaining of aching joints and churning bellies. Mikoto had been assessed, judged not to be in immediate danger, and planted on a stretcher that at least offered her an excellent view of the emergency room.

Itachi had left the village for that mission, giving her an excellent opportunity to meet the infamous Eiji.

When she first heard of the boy, Mikoto had assumed he'd be old news in a matter of weeks, but he'd become a fixture in Itachi's life. Or the rumors about Itachi's life. Sasuke seemed incapable of even thinking Itachi's name without suffering a minor breakdown, not that Mikoto blamed him (her dear Sasuke, resilient and hardworking as he was, was young in a way Itachi had never been).

So Mikoto decided that some recon on Eiji would be . . . interesting, if not necessarily useful.

The boy was unusually handsome, but if Itachi was the type to be distracted by superficiality for so long, then she'd known him even less than she realized. Eiji might be skilled, but she knew Itachi placed little value on that, which was just as well. He'd go mad from pride and frustration if he went around looking for people to impress him.

She watched Eiji work, judged him competent if not exactly pleasant. Or conventionally pleasant, to be more accurate. He touched patients as he glared at them, distracted children before giving them shots, and used chakra sparingly, always watching himself for exhaustion. Judging by the way he responded to subtle changes in the room's bustle and noise, he knew the place like the back of his hand.

For once, fortune was on her side, and another medic interrupted Eiji as he headed to her bed.

"Hey," said a girl with a butterfly pin in her hair. "Do you remember a patient you saw last week? Fifteen-year-old with an STI?"

"I don't remember patients I saw half-an-hour ago," said Eiji, shrugging his broad shoulders. "So I'm going with no."

"She says she saw the male medic," said the girl.

"Maybe Jian?"

"The tall, hot, male medic with gray eyes."

"Sounds like Jian to me," said Eji.

"Come on!"

"I'd fuck him," said Eiji, reaching for the curtain around Mikoto's bed. "Better go consult with him about that . . . and what the fuck happened here?" he asked when he turned around and his eyes fell on Mikoto's foot.

"I stepped on a rusty nail, I'm afraid," said Mikoto, smiling gingerly.

"Were you running?" he asked, opening the cart beside Mikoto's bed. "'Cause it looks like it went right through."

He poured crystalline water into a bucket and started mixing powders and salts while asking Mikoto a stream of questions that Mikoto assumed were routine. Again, she noted his competence at medicine, if not for anything else. Mikoto was young to be an amputee without a headband, and she knew for a fact that Itachi's resemblance to her was not insignificant.

"Morphine milk," said Eiji, waving a syringe with milky fluid at her. "This is some good shit, or so I'm told."

"I won't need it," said Mikoto. "I've birthed children."

"I'm sure that was painful, but there're no bones in your cervix to grind into fine powder." Eiji paused, then looked at her and gestured at her belly. "That's the smallest part the baby has to squeeze through."

"I know what a cervix is," said Mikoto. "I still refuse the painkiller."

"Okay, badass," said Eiji. "If you start hollering, I'm gonna give you some anyway."

"I didn't holler when my son cut this off," said Mikoto, raising her stump.

Finally, Eiji stopped in his tracks. ". . . Oh." He put the syringe down and avoided her eyes. "Alright, I need to examine that foot."

Mikoto smiled and left him to his work. He did things Mikoto would not have expected, like ask if she felt his touch at specific areas that she assumed corresponded to different nerves, then asked her to move her ankle up and down, warning her half-heartedly about the pain.

"Looks like you didn't fuck up a nerve," he said. "Now here comes the chakra. Remember, I got painkillers."

The gentleness evaporated then, as did his apparent efficiency. The salt bath burned the wound, especially when he forced the water through the hole, but it was nothing compared to the subsequent tendrils of chakra he jammed into the fractures. She was no expert, but she didn't think mending the injury would take quite as long as it did, or that she'd be tempted to take up his offer of opiates. She was sweating by the time he finished, and her heart fluttered like a trapped rabbit.

"No scar!" said Eiji, patting her foot. "I'm getting better at that. I'm gonna give you a course of antibiotics just in case; please fucking finish them."

"You're going to pretend you don't know who I am," said Mikoto.

He kept on cleaning up. Mikoto gave him a point for being a quick learner.

"You're the one who put a fake name on your papers," said Eiji, shrugging.

"And to think I went through all this trouble to meet you."

That gave the boy pause. Then he turned to her with an incredulous frown. "You did that on _purpose?_ Crazy bitch."

"Crass, but then again, you are a whore's son."

"And according to certain files, so is Itachi."

Mikoto laughed, surprised that it was actually genuine. "Clever boy."

"What do you want here?"

"I have some questions about my son."

"You're not the first one with questions, lady." He sighed. "My address is public record, you know? This," he gestured at her foot, "was fucking unnecessary. Especially because I don't know anything. Unless you're wondering what your son likes in bed."

It would have been unnecessary if she didn't care about the whole world knowing she had anything to discuss with Itachi's . . . acquaintances. "You know more than you realize," said Mikoto.

She let her own chakra loose then, and the boy didn't notice anything except for a faint ache around his temples. He rubbed at his eyes, looking around, eyebrows furrowed. No defenses against genjutsu. Had Itachi taught him nothing?

"Is he sorry?" asked Mikoto.

Eiji grunted and tried to curl in on himself. "He's not sorry about shit."

"Why is he with you?" asked Mikoto, mostly to see what the boy thought of himself.

"Because I'm a medic."

Interesting. "Is Itachi ill?"

"That's . . ." He tried to suck in a deep breath, but Mikoto made him choke. "Why do I wanna tell you this?"

Mikoto would respect his loyalty, but any loyalty towards Itachi was nothing but stupidity. "Is he ill?" She pressed harder against his mind.

"He's an insomniac," said Eiji. "Pretty bad . . . hallucinates sometimes."

Mikoto would press harder, but she couldn't risk breaking one of Konoha's precious medics with genjutsu. Not one connected to Itachi in any way. She scrubbed the last few minutes of his memory clean, and let him go.

"Fuck . . ." he mumbled. "M'head's killing me already. You have any questions, lady?" He wasn't even looking at her anymore.

"No, you've been very helpful." She stood up to test her foot and nodded in satisfaction. No pain. "Thank you."

"Yeah." He yawned. "Don't forget your antibiotics. And finish them!"

"Yes, of course," said Mikoto, heading out.

So Itachi was an insomniac. Not perfect after all, then. She smiled, remembering a small boy who refused to nap in kindergarten, for the few weeks he attended. Then the war had come, and few people slept at all.


End file.
